


It’s Not Christmas Until You Come Home

by BetteNoire (WeAreWolves)



Series: A Hatemance For The Ages [2]
Category: Captain America (Movies)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Soulmates, Enemies to Lovers, Enemies to Still Enemies, Hatemance, M/M, Soulmate-Identifying Marks, Soulmates, both of them are assholes, bottom!Steve
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-12-27
Updated: 2018-12-27
Packaged: 2019-09-28 05:56:46
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,522
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17177174
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/WeAreWolves/pseuds/BetteNoire
Summary: When Steve was young, he imagined that one day he’d meet his soulmate and they’d look deeply, lovingly into each other’s eyes and then everything would be peaches and cream thereafter.That is... not at all what happened.A sequel to “And The Horse You Rode In On,” which you should probably read first.





	It’s Not Christmas Until You Come Home

Steve stomps through Avengers Tower’s common area, his annoyance so palpable that people who don’t even recognise him still scurry quickly out of his way. Two days to go until Christmas and everything is fucking horrible. He shoots a particularly withering glance at the coffeeshop where all of his absolute misery had started, before continuing on to his way to the bank of elevators that would take him to his emergency 9am meeting with Trudy From PR.

The elevators have TVs in them broadcasting current headlines, because idiots in the modern era can’t exist for a moment without some sort of glowing distraction. And for 14 floors, Steve gets it rubbed in his face how he IS the current headline. He curses himself, the Childrens’ Hospital, Tony Stark, and most of all Bucky Goddamn Barnes for ruining his Christmas.

“Pose for a picture,” they said. “Wouldn’t it be cute if you held up the little girl so she can put the star on the top of the tree,” they said. “A little higher,” they said.

And then click, a perfect shot of Steve smiling his tense, forced smile as he held the child over his head, his St Jude’s t-shirt riding up over his obliques, and his Words on display for everyone to see: _Go To Hell_.

Now the entire fucking world thought it had a right to know where Captain America’s sweary soulmate was, and wasn’t that a joke, because _Captain America himself_ didn’t even have any idea where Captain America’s soulmate had fucked off to.

Steve burst into the meeting room to find Trudy looking at him with her best unimpressed basilisk stare and, sitting right next to her, Nick Fury.

He rolls his eyes as he sits down, and addresses Nick. “She one of yours?”

“Of course,” Nick says. “You think we’d let somebody deal with the Avengers’ shenanigans without them having the absolute highest security clearance in the land?”

Trudy looks smug at that, because of course she does.

Steve leans back in his chair and stares at the ceiling. “So why don’t you tell me what I’m supposed to say to everyone,” he sighs, pouring as much acid as he can into his next phrase. “About my _soulmate_.”

“That’s easy,” Trudy says. “Nothing.”

Steve sits up at that. “What?”

Fury leans forwards, fixing him with an icy glare. “You will say _nothing_ about your soulmate. We will acknowledge that you have one. We will lead the public to assume they are female, by not specifying their gender. We will say that their job is classified in nature and that you two are happy, and _that is all_.”

“So you’re going to spin a bunch of lies and the only true thing you’re going to say is his work is classified,” Steve says.

“Affirmative,” Trudy says.

Fury rubs the bridge of nose. “Look, Steve. I have two super-soldiers. One is a national symbol and can’t go anywhere without being photographed. The other one is a ghost. Not even his family knows he’s a super-soldier. As far as our enemies are concerned, they have no idea he exists. Now,” Fury says, his voice dropping to a hiss, “ _guess which one is more useful to me_.”

“He has a family?” Steve asks, his voice cracking.

“He didn’t tell you?” Fury says.

“Look, I had two days with him after that mission in South America and then, if you remember, you called him in to go undercover and I haven’t heard from him since,” Steve grits out.

“It was important,” Fury replies.

Steve shakes his head, not trusting himself to speak.

Trudy flicks through some documents on her tablet. “So we’ll release a statement that yes, you have a soulmate, you’re very happy—“

—Steve snorts derisively—

“—and their job is classified so we can’t release their identity. Try not to be seen in public together,” Trudy says, and Steve loses it.

“I don’t see him at all so that’s not exactly going to be a problem,” Steve says, standing up so abruptly his chair falls backwards.

Trudy smiles a thin, indulgent smile. “Oh, and we need you to go to Tony Stark’s Christmas gala tonight. Smile for the cameras. We can’t have it seem like you’re hiding.”

“Christ,” Steve says. “Can’t I just take out a mad scientist, or save a city from inter-dimensional monsters, instead? Perhaps a little _mano-a-mano_ with a power-hungry megalomaniac in an iron mask?”

“Nope,” Trudy says. “Tuxedos and mini-quiches.”

“Ugh,” Steve shudders. “I’m going to bribe that idiot Quill to deliberately piss off some aliens. I hope you realise we’re one box of Devil Dogs and a secondhand copy of _Now That’s What I Call Music 43_ away from invasion.”

Fury smiles. “He’ll be back soon.”

“Ugh,” Steve says again. His skin has felt like it’s been on fire for weeks now, and he’s at the point where he’s ready for that fire to just burn everything down around him.

That evening, after a multi-hour gym workout, Steve struggles into his Tom Ford dinner jacket and heads to the Plaza Hotel on the arm of a beaming Natasha Romanoff (in blood-red sequins) as Clint Barton shambles along behind in a dark-purple velvet tux and light blue ruffled shirt, bow tie already askew. They smile for the photos, and Steve ignores the voices yelling _Who’s your soulmate? What’s her name? What were her words?_

After exactly five minutes of photo op, two masked SHIELD Strike agents in their head-to-toe black stand in front of the photographers and glare at them. Strike are the usual security at these things, because nine times out of ten, something kicks off. Steve can’t _believe_ how many idiots think it’s a good idea to try to fuck with the Avengers at galas, like formal dress somehow negates their fighting prowess. If he’s being honest with himself, it’s the main reason he still goes to these things, even though he hates every second of them.

He goes inside. Supposedly, the hard part should be done, but in reality Steve’s just moved past the professional question-askers into the realm of the amateur ones, who are often way more invasive and much less understanding of social cues.

He wishes for the umpteenth time, as he snags a champagne flute off a passing tray, that he could get drunk. He also wishes that he could go back to his previous, pre-Soulmate state of crushing, empty loneliness. Thinking he had nobody was somehow so much better, and easier, than knowing he had someone as infuriating, and as absent, as Bucky.

Steve reckons has about two minutes before Fury’s people spot him and assign him his Strike watchdog. Normally he welcomes them, because their dark, glowering presence lets him keep smiling and being aw-shucks Captain America while completely avoiding actually interacting with anyone in a meaningful way.

But tonight, he aims to misbehave.

First, he heads to the bar to get something stronger, smiling and nodding at all the people he passes. There’s a woman leaning against the bar. He knows her type, there’s usually about a dozen of them at any of these galas, glaring at each other from under their fake lashes like angry, territorial cats. She’s wearing a gold dress made up of thin pieces of elastic, and it hugs her figure and squeezes up her breasts in an entirely obvious way.

He smiles at her. “Nice dress.” It’s not. It’s vulgar and obvious and won’t even look better in a heap on his floor.

She leans forwards, managing to pout at him and smile at the same time. The edges of her fake lashes don’t quite meet up with the corners of her eyes. “Wow,” she says. “You’re even better in person.”

And Steve squeezes his eyes shut in frustration. Why. _Why_ couldn’t she have said anything but that.

 _That_ was the very first thing _he_ said to Steve. Those should have been Steve’s Words, but apparently (as Tony later explained at length), his Words couldn’t show until his Soulmate was genetically equivalent to him, which the stupid motherfucker went and accidentally did _out of spite_ because he was _the dumbest asshole who ever lived_ , and Steve _never wants to see him again_ , because every time he comes around he lights Steve’s entire skin on fire and Steve loses the ability to think rationally. 

The woman at the bar doesn’t light his skin on fire. She actually makes it crawl a bit. She has soft curves, when his body aches for broad shoulders and narrow hips and sharply-defined planes of muscle.

She has long nails, painted gold, and she’s scritching them up his bicep. “Whoa,” she breathes.

And then Steve feels a presence at his back. His Strike watchdog has arrived. He relaxes, feeling more comfortable than he has in weeks. This was all a mistake. His watchdog will take care of it.

The woman’s got one of her gold claws heading towards his shirt, about to slip under his jacket, when suddenly there’s a good six feet of Strike officer between the woman and him. She steps back, a curl of frustration on her lips.

The mask the Strike agents wear distorts his watchdog’s voice — Fury is incredibly strict about preserving the anonymity of his agents — but the man’s inflection is clear. “Please step away from Captain Rogers,” he says.

“Why?” The woman says, hands on her hips. “What if he doesn’t want me to step away?”

Usually at this point, Strike agents roll their eyes under their goggles, look to Steve for confirmation, and then calmly warn the woman that if she gets another warning, she’ll be escorted out of the party and banned from future ones.

But not this time.

Instead, a growl rips out of his Strike watchdog’s throat, harsh enough that the woman takes an involuntary step back, wobbling on her six-inch Louboutin spikes.

And Steve finally takes a good look at his watchdog. At the V-shaped body and thick biceps, and the way his suit hugs slim hips. At the lock of long brown hair that’s escaped from under his helmet.

Steve’s pulse thunders through his body. His Words burn on his hip, and he can feel the answering heat from the Strike agent’s left bicep. “I… I have to use the men’s room,” he manages, and he flees to the bathroom on the mezzanine floor that’s reserved for the Avengers. (The less said about the first gala, when they tried using the same restrooms as the general public, the better. It took four hours to contain The Hulk.)

He’s just turning to shut the door behind him when his Strike watchdog pushes in behind him, locking the door and pulling his helmet and eyepro off at the same time.

“Bucky,” Steve breathes. Then his anger flares back, burning on a pyre of weeks of sexual frustration. “Where the hell have you been?”

“In the frozen, crazy hellscape of Upstate New York,” Bucky growls, ripping off his mask, too. He’s dirty, and unshaven, and his eyes are hollow, ringed with exhaustion. He stalks towards Steve, hissing angrily with each step. “I missed Hanukkah.”

“Wait, you’re Jewish?” Steve says.

Bucky rolls his eyes. “I _thought_ I missed you, but I’m beginning to reconsider that,” he says. “I’ve been undercover in a full-on death cult that Fury suspected might be stockpiling biological weapons and, _spoiler_ , he was right. That’s the reason Fury sent me. Any other agent would have been killed. And I have been shot up and infected with every goddamn experiment they had, once I blew my cover and decided to take them all down. Anthrax! Anthrax is _great_. So is Ebola. Bubonic Plague, though. Surprisingly overrated. _Steve_. I am exhausted. I still feel gross. And I haven’t slept in 72 hours. It was awesome walking in to the gala and having my first sight of you being you sticking your face down the cleavage of some tart dressed in a gold condom and fuck-me heels. Happy fucking holidays to me, asshole.”

Steve grabs the straps of Bucky’s shoulder harness. “I have you for two days and you vanish. You don’t tell me you have a family. You don’t tell me you’re Jewish. You don’t tell me _anything_ about yourself. You could vanish tomorrow and I wouldn’t have the faintest idea where to look for you, or who to call to say you’ve gone missing.” He shakes those straps and Bucky stops, shocked. “I hate you. You’re a jerk, and I can’t believe out of everyone in this whole world I’m saddled with you. But…” Steve groans, his shoulders sagging. “…I don’t want to lose you. I only just found you.”

He surges forwards and kisses Bucky. It’s a rough thing, all clashing teeth and bruised lips, and Bucky opens up to him, moaning like a man dying of thirst getting his first taste of water. Bucky’s hands are all over Steve, opening his jacket, unhooking his pants. “Fuck, god, I hate how much I miss you,” Bucky growls into Steve’s mouth, kissing him back like it was his last act on Earth. He pushes Steve into a wall, and Steve makes an involuntary, regretful noise as Bucky pulls his mouth away. He’s suddenly aware he’s somehow half out of his clothes. “Steve, this is going to keep happening,” he rasps out. “I’m staying with SHIELD. I was fucking suicidal working at that coffee shop. My self-worth was lower than zero. I still get depressed as hell but I can _do_ things now,” Bucky says. “I’m good at what I do. _Really_ good. I love working ops. I can’t be your good little stay-at-home wife, waiting in a corset and stockings for you to come back from Avenging—“

Steve gulps, and whines a bit in the back of his throat.

“—uh,” Bucky says, his eyes widening.

“Fuck,” Steve squeaks.

“Okay,” Bucky says, breathless, his eyes dilating with arousal. “Okay, so, a corset and stockings can be arranged.” He sinks to his knees on the bathroom floor, gazing up at Steve as he pulls Steve’s hard cock free of his tuxedo pants. “I’ll have to find someone to help me lace it up good and tight,” Bucky whispers, licking a stripe up the side of Steve’s dick. Steve almost loses his balance, and grabs onto the edge of the marble countertop for support. “Someone real strong,” Bucky continues, letting his lips brush over the silky, taut skin of Steve’s dick. “Get my waist real small for you,” he smiles. “Maybe Thor’s strong enough. You think he could, uh, help me out? I’d have to bend over the kitchen table, so he’d have enough leverage—”

The marble cracks and groans under Steve’s hand as his entire body clenches in jealous fury.

Bucky bites his inner thigh, hard. “Yeah. Stay away from sluts, Steve, because this could escalate.”

“Fuck you,” Steve hisses.

“Nah,” Bucky says. “Gonna be the other way around. Gonna suck you off then rail you over this fucking appalling marble countertop and then send you back out to the gala to mingle with all the rich donors while my come drips down your leg.”

Steve’s whole body convulses, and he grabs Bucky by his dirty, greasy hair and as Bucky finally wraps his mouth around his dick. He thrusts into Bucky’s mouth as Bucky takes him all the way in, the head of his cock bumping against the constriction of the back of Bucky’s throat. Steve arches, his lids fluttering shut, as waves of arousal slam through him. Part of him _hates_ how Bucky can do this to him, how absolutely he can reduce Steve to a quivering mass of hormonal, sexual need, because he’s pretty sure that’s not how most soulmates work.

But then, as Natasha once told him, maybe happiness looks different for him than the kind advertised in dime-store romances and Frank Capra films. Maybe physical love hits him different, too.

Or maybe, like Bucky, he’s just a goddamn pervert.

Bucky, who is busy applying his new super-soldier strength and breath-holding ability to suck Steve’s brain out through his dick. Steve wraps his hands around Bucky’s scruffy cheeks, stroking them, feeling through them his own dick sliding in and out of Bucky’s mouth. His eyes squeeze shut and his hips judder forwards in short, abortive thrusts as a cry of pure ecstasy forces itself out from his mouth. As he comes down Bucky’s throat, he can feel the wet heat of tears in his eyes. “Fuck,” he gasps, ragged and suddenly too full of emotion. “I don’t want to be in love with you.”

Bucky surges up and kisses him, pushing him back against the hard marble edge of the sink counter. Bucky’s mouth still tastes of come and dick, and Steve can feel the bulge of Bucky’s erection even through his cargo pants and his jock strap. “I can skip the lube,” Bucky breathes into his mouth. “That should help.”

Steve wraps a leg around one of Bucky’s thick thighs and spins them, pressing Bucky back into the countertop. “You actually brought lube? Presumptuous,” he says.

“First,” Bucky says, guiding Steve’s hand down to his utility belt, “what do you think belt pouches were made for, and second, of course I brought lube. You’re easier than the first college girl to die in a slasher film, sunshine.”

“Fuck you,” Steve whispers again, as his fingers close around a small bottle of lube.

Bucky smirks at him, and steps away, dragging his lower lip between his teeth. “Already told ya. Gonna be the other way around. Now hop up on that counter and prep yourself while I watch, like a good boy.”

“No,” Steve says, wiping himself off on one of the posh actual-cloth fancy hand-towels the bathroom provides.

“Okay,” Bucky shrugs, and turns towards the door, scooping up his helmet and mask from the ground.

“Wait, what—“ Steve says.

Bucky’s goggles are already on, and he’s busy stuffing his hair up under his helmet. “They actually assigned Rollins to you for close protection tonight. Some question over whether I’d get back in time, but it’s pretty amazing how fast you can go on Route 87 when the cops know you’re SHIELD. I’ll let him know where you are. He’s probably a little frantic. Looks bad, losing your man.” Then he covers his mouth with his mask.

“You’re just going to walk out,” Steve hisses.

“Well, yeah. Go home, shave, shower, jerk off, everything I should have done other than come here. Unless…” Bucky’s facial expression is obscured by the mask and goggles, but the flick of his fingers in the direction of Steve’s crotch makes his intention clear.

And everything in Steve wants to call Bucky’s bluff. After all, he’s already gotten off, even if the hot spiral of arousal in his groin is telling him he could very easily get off again, thank you very much. The part of Steve that always was a stubborn, punch-drunk contrarian wants to just let his asshole of a soulmate walk out and go home without getting what he knows Bucky wants.

The only problem is, Steve wants it too.

Bucky’s hand is unlocking the door when the clatter of Steve’s pants and suspenders hitting the floor echoes through the marble-lined room.  
  
His piece of shit soulmate has just turned around after re-locking the door when Steve’s boxer briefs hit him in the face.

“Leave the mask on,” Steve orders, as he hops up on the counter and spreads his legs. “And the goggles.” He drizzles some lube on his hand and stuffs two fingers inside himself, because he wants this to burn, it’s already burning him, this nearness to this complete jerk whose Words mar the line of his obliques with their ugly, boxy letters.

Steve preps himself hard and fast, his dick swelling into hardness again as Bucky leans casually against the door, unbuttons his own trousers, undoes the velcro on his jockstrap, and begins to stroke himself. Steve can’t even tell what part of him Bucky is looking at, through the goggles and the mask. The helmet comes off and Bucky tosses it on the ground, dumping his jockstrap inside, and Steve laughs to himself that a super-soldiier who’s just been shot up with some of the deadliest diseases known to mankind balks at letting his jock touch a bathroom floor in a luxury hotel.

“Hurry up,” Bucky says, his voice coming out like that of a stranger through the mask’s anonymization filter.

Steve grits his teeth as that causes yet another wave of arousal through him. He’d never thought he was kinky, but apparently each new day with his soulmate reveals to him another fucked-up thing that turns him on. “I’’m good,” he says, sliding off the counter and turning around, presenting his ass to Bucky.

“Ah-ah,” the weird computerized voice says. “As you were. I changed my mind.”

Bucky hasn’t stripped at all. He’s still wearing all his harnesses and weapons, stealth uniform, combat boots, and mask and goggles. Steve’s naked from the waist down, and he can feel himself blushing, strangely vulnerable for the greatest soldier in the world as he sits up like an offering on a marble slab.

Bucky prowls forwards and puts one arm around Steve’s lower back, supporting him as Bucky guides Steve’s left leg over his shoulder. Steve can feel the mask nuzzle against the inside of his knee, and then the hot, thick press of Bucky’s cock at his hole. Steve’s head almost breaks the mirror as he throws it back, as he bites the inside of his cheek and tries not to beg.

“I’m going to fuck you now,” Bucky rasps through the mask. “Hard. Is that how you want it?”

Steve nods, an embarrassing whine coming out of his throat.

Bucky slides into him and bottoms out in one long, powerful thrust, and Steve clenches around him. It hurts, but it feels so right, he’s needed this for weeks. His lover— his soulmate’s hands clench around his hips and then Bucky is slamming into him, the hard planes of the mask and goggles scratching against the side of his face as his hands scrabble for purchase on the cold marble.

“J-jerk me off, too,” Steve orders, and he feels one of Bucky’s big, calloused hands wrap around him. He’s still sensitive from the blowjob, and it’s almost too much, but at the same time not nearly enough. Bucky isn’t as long as he is, but he’s thicker, and the angle they’re at is pretty much mathematically designed to have all that thickness dragging over his prostate with every stroke.

“You’re not coming until I allow you,” Bucky says.

“Why?” Steve argues.

“As punishment,” Bucky answers.

“For what?”

“For looking so damn good, and being such a fucking punk with it,” Bucky growls at him.

Steve wants to bark out a laugh, but it’s cut off by a particularly perfect combination of Bucky’s hand on his dick and his cock up Steve’s ass, and before Steve fully realises it he’s trying to thrust down harder on Bucky’s dick while also thrusting up into Bucky’s hand and he can feel Orgasm Number Two unspooling within him so he finds the only bare flesh he can on Bucky, on his neck just above where his uniform top ends, and sucks down hard, determined to leave the darkest hickey he can.

Bucky yelps, and grips down hard on his dick, causing Steve to let go of his bite on Bucky’s neck to growl in frustration. “You asshole,” Bucky says. “I’m going to make you come on command so you don’t ruin your tuxedo or my uniform, both of which are black, you fucking moron. Unless you want to explain to all the 60-year-old charity donors out there what the white stains all over your jacket are.”

He pulls out and throws Steve over onto his chest on the marble, and says, “look into the mirror. I want you to watch.” Then he pushes back into Steve, one hand on his shoulder to keep Steve from sliding forwards with the strength of his thrusts, the other hand somehow lubed-up again and stripping Steve’s cock for all it’s worth.

And it’s a sight, the blank, dark visage of Bucky in his Strike goggles and muzzle, his long hair obscuring even that, as he lifts one of Steve’s legs off the ground and props the side of his knee on the marble counter before starting to thrust again. Steve can’t take his eyes off the scene in the mirror. It’s his every fantasy of Stranger Sex, but it’s his soulmate, and every cell in his body is singing out with the rightness of it, with how much they’re in sync, and he’s so fucking aroused he feels half-ready to pass out with it, and finally he can feel Bucky’s hands dig into him harder and his thrusts get messier, and suddenly there’s one of those posh hand-towels wrapped gently around his dick and Bucky orders, “Come. Now.”

And Steve does. He can feel Bucky coming inside him as he clenches down onto Bucky’s huge dick in him, as he moans and shoots off into the handtowel, his body convulsing as it hits him in waves, more than he thought possible.

He slumps down and almost hits his face on the mirror, but Bucky catches him, gently, so gently, and turns him around and sits him up on another one of those towels as he cleans both of them off.

He grins, dopey, and so happy, as Bucky carefully dresses him back into his underwear and tuxedo pants, and fixes his hair, and his shoes, and then pulls off his mask, gives him the softest, gentlest kiss that he’s ever given him, and then heads out.

“Give it five minutes, Rogers,” he says, as he raises his mask back up to put on. “Or everyone will guess.”

Steve gives him a blissed-out thumbs-up.

Bucky hesitates a moment, in front of the door, his mask not quite on. Finally, so quiet Steve can barely catch it, he says, “I love you too, you know.”

Then he leaves.

 

* * *

Bucky spots Natasha as she leans against the mezzanine balcony watching the revelers below, an empty champagne flute being twirled in her manicured fingers. He sidles up to her, dismissing her close protection agent with a nod. She doesn’t look at him or acknowledge him in any way, but her gaze does shift to conspicuously track Captain America, smiling with actual, unfaked happiness as he works the crowd down below.

“Hm,” she says, sotto voce. “You two completely deserve each other.”

“Yes, I must have done something very bad in a past lifetime,” he says.

“Good to see him smiling again, though. And I know you well enough to know you’re grinning like a fool under that mask.”

“Yeah.” He grabs another glass of champagne for Romanoff from a passing waiter, and raises it in salute before exchanging it for her empty glass. “Well done, past me.”

“Indeed,” the Black Widow smiles. “And present you.”

 

**Author's Note:**

> Welcome back to my Problematic Fic. Apparently I process holiday exhaustion by writing PWP of these two assholes.


End file.
